Message

Jacoby Shaddix,
I found your song, “Scars”, to be very inspirational. I have my own beliefs about its meaning, however I can only assume, as I did not write the song. I wish to test the accuracy of my analysis of the message to the song, if you are comfortable sharing. I’ve known people having interpreted the song as being about self harm, and I didn’t hesitate to inform them that I strongly disagree. If I could prove them wrong, it would be awesome, as I am the type of person who always has to have the last word in a debate. I personally believe that you could only get the message of self harm out of the song if you merely grazed the surface of it. I think that they only took into account parts of the song, such as the title, or the verse, “I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut.” Some of the people I know think that the song is referring to cutting and depression. I, being a songwriter myself, prefer to read between the lines, and go deeper into processing the meaning of things. I am pretty confident that I have gotten the meaning correct, or at least something close to it, so here goes.
When I hear, “I can’t help you fix yourself, but at least I can say I’ve tried. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to move on with my own life”, I take that as a reference to a situation in which you, or someone else, tried to help a friend or another person that you deeply cared about, but that person didn’t accept the help. Whether the person was suffering from an addiction or something else, it is clear to me, at least, that the person is or was denying that he/she had a problem. My rebuttal to people who say that the song is about self harm is that if that were the case, you wouldn’t say, “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to move on with my own life”, because when people cut, they are most likely depressed and don’t have any motivation at all to move on with their life. Depression consumes you, and at the point of cutting, you just don’t care about yourself anymore-I should know; I’ve been there, done that. That may seem a bit blunt, and it is definitely a touchy subject, but hey, sometimes the truth hurts, especially when one doesn’t want to hear it.
When you say, “I tear myself open, I sew myself shut, and my weakness is that I care too much, And the scars remind us that the past is real, I tear myself open just to feel”, I think of a situation in which you, or someone you know, jumped wholeheartedly into a relationship, and opened your heart up to that person because you care about them, but that person either hurt you intentionally, or hurt themselves and in turn hurt you. That probably made you distance yourself from the relationship, or “sew yourself shut”, in response. Maybe guilt ran its course, or perhaps something else, but whatever it was, something brought you back to the person, probably with the false hope of knocking some sense into them. In other words, you wanted to feel like you were doing something to help the person because you still care about them, but nevertheless, you were hurt again, whether it was intentional or not. Now you understand that no matter how many times you attempt to get a person to change, it is up to them whether they do, and the memories or “scars” of past pain are still there, and will always be, so there is no sense in pretending that the past never occurred. As everyone knows, “If you stick a nail in a wall, you can take it out, but the hole will still remain”. You are probably still sad for that person, but now you realize that, in the long run, you are only hurting yourself by attempting to help them. You realize that it is foolish to repeat the same thing over and over again with the irrational hope of a different result. It is like hitting your head against a wall and hoping that someday the wall will miraculously disappear and it won’t hurt anymore, but since this is a lost cause, you are now moving on with your own life. This message is very far from that of self harm, and that reinforces my opinion that you need to examine all parts of something before deeming your perspective a fact. This song helps me to remember that some people’s problems are way too far over my head to be trying to solve, and it isn’t my responsibility to take their issues on, making them my own. It will only hurt me in the long run, and it will definitely not help them. People need to make their own mistakes and solve their own problems in order to learn from their past. If they don’t do things themselves, they’ll never learn how to do those things.

I think that I am so touched by your song because I have been through a similar (if not the same) situation as the one that I believe you are talking about in “Scars”. A person that I immensely care about struggled with an addiction to alcohol not too long ago. I was not in a position to make the choice to quit for them, as I was out of state at the time, and no matter what I said over the phone, the person just would not be persuaded to accept that they had an addiction. The circumstance tore me apart for the longest time, and I now know that it was your song that got me through that terrible point in my life. I desperately needed a way that I would not have feel alone in life’s battlefield, because, as you said so yourself, “Life is a Bullet”. Your song provided just the comfort I needed right then and there, and for the first time in what seemed like ages, I finally knew that there were others out there (no matter how far away they might be), who had been or were going through the things I was facing at that time. Just the knowledge of that eased my pain and helped me to believe that I would make it through, and everything would turn out okay again at some point, because if others had done it, I could do it.
I have spent a long time trying to piece together the meaning of this song, and now I have some questions. I was wondering if I am as close as I think I am to figuring out the message, and if not, what the meaning behind it is. Whether I am close or not, though, I am curious to know what inspired you to write “Scars”. Also, who are you referring to in the song? Is it you and a past girlfriend? A friend? Someone else? I am really curious to find out. I really love your music, and hopefully I can come to a concert next time you tour in California. I hope to receive a response, and I thank you for taking the time to read this letter.




-sickbeatz88
An anonymous teen girl who has been there, done that….. ;)